章 2: Chapter 2 - Building Blocks I

I've lived a boring life. I always chose the easy way out. When I went to college, I majored in Film History because I thought it was the easiest course. When I was offered to work in sales with low pay, I immediately accepted because I thought job hunting was just bothersome.

I've lived a monotone life. Work, Eat, Sleep, Repeat. Sure, I complained all throughout my life but I never really did anything to improve. The only thing that brightened my life was the novels I read and the games I played.

Now, with the skills I received, I could live an even easier life. But do I really want that? Do I really want to sit on my ass all day, living another monotonous life? No. With this new life, I want live life with meaning. A life with thrill.

Is it idiotic to choose the hard way? Yes. But would it be fun? Hell YEAH!

I stood up from the bed and went to the dressing room. While looking for clothes to wear in Michael's wardrobe, I picked out a blue polo shirt, faded black jeans, and casual brown leather boots. I then put it on, and my former clothes straight to the hamper.

Most of old Michael's clothes are pretty boring, with the leather jacket being the only saving grace. Sure, the suits look nice, but going to the store with a suit is overkill. I've gotta do something about it later.

Assessing Michael's memories, I walked up to the bedside table drawer. I opened it, and there I saw my phone, wallet, keys, a box of cigarettes and a lighter. I put them all in my pockets except the phone.

[You're currently holding a device, would you like to install the Profiler?]

A pop-up immediately appeared the moment I held my phone.

"Yes," I answered promptly.

[Installing…Failed! A low-spec phone has been detected]

I guess that's understandable. Michael never really cared about the trends so he stayed with his old model phone ever since his first stay in Los Santos which was four years ago.

Putting the phone in my pocket, I then walked towards the door and left the room. The moment I did, I heard gunshots from the room beside mine. It was probably Jimmy playing games.

Ohhh boy… this is gonna be awkward. I've never really dated anyone in the past, so suddenly having two children in their teens is gonna be difficult. Sure, I have Michael's memories. But having memories and having experience is different. Thank God Amanda wasn't in the room when I woke up.

I then walked down the stairs, and straight outside. There parked was Michael's car. A Black Obey Tailgater. Its real-life counterpart is the Audi A6. The gardener was also there, watering the plants. Based on Michael's memories, his name was Carlos.

"Good Morning Carlos. Wonderful weather we're having ain't it?" I greeted him.

"Yes, Mr. De Santa! I hope your day will be as wonderful as well" He replied with a smile.

"You too" I replied with a smile of my own, then pat his back. After, I went to my car and turned it on. I then went for the gate, waited for it to fully open, and left the two-story mansion that is Michael's house.

First things first. I need to buy a Laptop and a new phone for the [Profiler] skill. Then I gotta start making plans for the future. While going through Michael's memories, I found a store where I could buy the things I needed by Del Perro Plaza, which should be 5-10 minutes away from my house.

On the way there, I couldn't help but notice the outside world. It didn't look like the one in GTA V, it's more realistic, more human. Different types of cars moved past me, men and women trudging the sidewalks, different types of stores, buildings, billboards, and brands from fictional companies of GTA. I've never really been to Los Angeles so I couldn't really make a comparison, but Los Santos was… beautiful. Of course, if you ignore the crimes being committed on a daily.

After arriving at Del Perro Plaza, there were not many parked cars so I parked nearest to the store. Most of the stores in the plaza looked almost the same, with large glass windows, and glass doors, with their logos being the only one unique. I walked to where a store with a Digital Den logo at the top was located. It's where you could buy the most commonly used devices in Los Santos.

Entering, I was greeted with bright lights, white walls, and various devices on glass displays, some hung on the walls. There were only two people inside. Both employees, one by the cashier.

"Good Morning, Sir. How may I help you today?" A woman standing by one of the displays greeted me formally. She looked to be in her mid-20s, dark-skinned, with short blond-dyed dreadlocks. She was wearing the Digital Den uniform, purple polo with the latter's name printed on the front. She also wore an ID by her neck. Her name was Imani.

Imani? That sounds.. familiar… and she looks the same… but she only appears eight years after the Story Mode, so It might just be a coincidence.

"Hi. I'd like to buy a laptop, preferably one that could handle high-spec software, any recommendations?" I asked curiously. She then guided me towards a display with laptops, with their names and specs written beside it.

"Fruit Computers has the best specs and could run most heavy games, so I recommend this one. It also has a headphone as a freebie! So if I were you, I'd pick this one" She said with a smile.

Looking at the price tag, $1,200. Losing this much money won't matter anyway once I have the profiler, so I'll take this.

"Sure, I'll take it. What about a phone? What'd you recommend?"

"iFruit 5S is the newest model at the moment with a high-quality camera and amazing sound quality!" She replied, her smile never fading.

"I'll take that as well" After that, she guided me towards the cashier, and I paid for the laptop and phone.

I then walked out of Digital Den, with a bag in hand. All in all, I spent $1850. I lost almost a quarter of the money I have in my personal bank account, but that doesn't matter. With the profiler, I could easily earn them back.

I entered my car and drove around until I found a cafe, and there I started my planning phase.

I booted up the laptop, and immediately as I did so, the prompt appeared.

[Would you like to install the Profiler?]

'Yes'

[Installing…Installation Complete!]

The prompt then disappeared and a new icon appeared on my desktop. A black square with a white triangle and an exclamation mark in the middle.

Opening it, I immediately saw almost hundreds of things I could do right this second. To hacking the CCTV cameras nearby, controlling the traffic lights, turning off the power to the whole city and even bombing the buildings.

'Holy sh*t!' I couldn't help but curse.

I've never played watchdogs before so I didn't really have prior knowledge of it before other than it was about hacking. But this is on another level! The skill also said that the one I have is an upgraded version, so I haven't even seen most of what it could do. It was still 10 A.M so I have the whole day to study this.

After a couple of hours of studying, with coffee, and lunch breaks in between. I can now understand the bare minimum of the capabilities of the Profiler, and hooollyy sh*t was this the most dangerous device in the world. I could do terroristic attacks with just a click on this thing. Thank God only I could use this.

I also did some digging about the De Santa Family. Both Tracy and Jimmy are currently in High School right now. Amanda was unemployed, mostly going on shopping sprees and buying whatever she wants using the money from her and Michael's shared bank account which contained the money he got from the North Yankton job, to which they agreed to only use for the family, but never followed through with it. It currently has $42,069.

I also found the address of most of the main characters. Franklin was currently 23. This was surprising because, in Story Mode, which was supposed to start in 6 years, he was 25. Fearing that some plot points were changed, I did some more digging, and found out Imani who was Frank's niece, was his cousin in this world. Thankfully, that was the only thing that had a major change. Everything stayed the same with Trevor and Lester.

Moving on, It's now time to start Phase 1 of my Operation: San Andreas Takeover.

***

That's it for Chapter 2!

I changed to 1st POV for this chapter, did I do good? Or should I go back to 3rd POV? Also, were my descriptions comprehensible?

I also changed some parts of the story for my convenience. Don't worry, nothing big.